Page Fright

Why I am a Writer. And will Always Write...




It took my welcoming part of my #twitterfamily, Denise Swank, to the writer's side of the blogosphere just now to realize that I never properly introduced myself. So here it is, my belated "Why I Am a Writer" post.

(Can you hear the trumpet blasts?)

Okay, me. I am fortunate to have a mother who blazes through books. I mean, she's the type of person that has to spend an hour reading the first two chapters of a book while standing in the book store just to remember if she's read it or not. Yeah, she blazes--and amazes. (I defy anyone to meet my mommy and say the publishing business is in trouble. Psshaw, I say. Psshaw.)

That's us at my college graduation. Yeah, I'm squinting and have post-grad-cap hair, but that's not the point. Isn't my mommy cute?

She was really proud of me then. I have over 50 cousins in my generation, I'm somewhere in the middle, and I was the very first (if we exclude step cousins--who shouldn't be excluded because I love them but will be excluded to make my claim more impressive) to graduate college. Yay.

But I have business degree. Boo.

In the words of my friend, SSCN (super secret code name) Tivoli, "WHY DID YOU GET A BUSINESS DEGREE!?"

Tivoli is right. We used to be BFFs in the middle years of high school. We had a notebook that we wrote a story together in. We had rules too: only three pages per person per swap. It was epic.

You see? I've wanted to write books since maybe fourteen. I was meant to be a writer, not a businessperson. (I can't tell you how scathingly jealous I was that Amelia Atwater-Rhodes published her first book at thirteen. Like, major jealous. And she was pretty to boot, dag-nabit.) And so I used to try to write books too.

Inspired by Ms. Atwater-Rhodes, and a million vampire stories long before they sparkled, I created my own vampires. One swam in my head for ages. I began writing it too. I still have it, it's messy and omniscient third person, but I still like it--not love it--all these years later. I know exactly what I was trying to say with it and who my characters were.

And Tivoli, of course, I wrote with on the side. We wrote the funniest things in those journals--mostly making fun of people less-pleasing to us. It was great fun.

So why did I get a business degree instead of English degree? Why did I postpone my own dreams so long? Because I got scared. And my ego got bruised. And I had succumbed to page fright.

This girl, not even deserving of a SSCN, broke my heart in high school.

She was in my English class (ironic, no?) and had once had the niceness to say she liked my ambience. With a compliment like that, who wouldn't start taking a person's words to heart? So we had to research desired careers in English at the end of the year. I chose the writer's life, naturally, and let me tell you--IT WAS HARD WORK. Have you tried researching it? It's nearly impossible, the experience is so different for everyone, but I did it. And after turning it in, not-deserving-of-a-SSCN girl asked me why I would want to write books.

"UM, BECAUSE WRITING, WRITERS, BOOKS, AND LITERATURE ARE AWESOME!?"

Oh, how I wish I would have said that, that I would of shut her up with the confidence that would only come to me years later... but I didn't. I said something along the lines of "because it's fun to me and I want something with my name on it to be around when I die. I want something to prove I was here." And then her answer broke my young ambitious writer-y heart.

"Don't you think that's kind of shallow?"

Shallow? Shallow. SHALLOW!! This girl wore Spice Girl hooker boots and black leather clothing to class every day and she had the gall to comment on my ambitions? Current me loathes persons like her, and current me wishes I could go hug former me and tell not-deserving-of-a-SSCN girl to bug off, that I'm smart and talented and the only things in life worth chasing are what makes your heart soar. But, like I said, my bravado was weak, my confidence shaken, and my heart broken.

I told no one, and I let my vampires fade out of existence.

I went off to college, thinking my math skills would do me well in a numbers world. I joined Accounting--sucked at it. Try Economics--good at it, but little future. Then landed with Management--because it was easy.

I still read plenty. I tore through many classics and fell in deep unbreakable love with Kurt Vonnegut through Slaughter-House Five. My critiques in college always came with the same praise: The writing is excellent... blah blah blah. It was a chip on my shoulder every time. (I rewrote for EVERYONE in college, mostly to save myself.) And then one day, in my last semester I got a call from my sister, SSCN Judy. She said, "Let's write a book."

Just like that.

Oh, I thought, I've always wanted to write a book. So we began.

My current MS is one she helped me create. Judy gets honorable mention for helping the process, but she dropped out after about a month. Not everyone is cut out to sit down and willingly feel the need pull out their own hair.

But I am.

Lucky my hair was pulled back that day, huh?

So now, I write. I will always write... no matter what. Success or no success. Even if I sit on top of thousands of pages of tens of books and short stories that only I am willing to read, I will carry on. Because I love it, it's who I am, and I don't care if you think I'm shallow for it. My professors had faith in me, now I do too.

(edit: header picture source.)

Did you have any defining moments of self-declaration?